e360 digestBusiness & Innovation

Offshore wind farms with thousands of wind turbines could have sapped much of the power of hurricanes Sandy, Katrina, and Isaac, significantly slowing their wind speeds, decreasing their accompanying storm surges, and possibly preventing billions of dollars in damages, according to a new study. Computer models

used in the study said that deploying tens of thousands of offshore wind turbines could absorb enough energy from a hurricane to reduce peak wind speeds by 56 to 92 mph and storm surges by 6 to 79 percent. "We found that when wind turbines are present, they slow down the outer rotation winds of a hurricane," said Stanford engineer Mark Jacobson, who led the research. "This feeds back to decrease wave height ... which in turn slows the winds of the entire hurricane and dissipates it faster." For Hurricane Katrina, a massive turbine array could have slowed wind speeds by 58 percent and storm surge by 79 percent, and for Sandy wind speeds could have been cut by 14 percent and storm surge by 34 percent, according to findings published in Nature Climate Change. PERMALINK

drilling areas associated with oil and natural gas production were identified in satellite images across a 30,000-square-mile region. The maps include well scars dating from around 1900, when oil drilling started in the region, up to 2009, at which point natural gas extraction far outweighed oil production. Since then, production has only intensified in Wyoming, a leading state in the U.S.'s unconventional oil and gas boom. The mapping effort, a first step in determining how oil and gas drilling operations impact wildlife and ecosystems, focused on southwestern Wyoming because it not only has some of the nation's largest natural gas reserves, but also because the region has high-quality wildlife habitat and encompasses a major portion of the country's remaining intact sagebrush steppe. PERMALINK

A new type of rewritable paper that uses water as ink could slash the amount of paper that's wasted daily, researchers say. The paper contains hydrochromic dyes — chemicals that change color when wet — and a single

page can be reused dozens of times, the scientists report in Nature Communications. Other types of rewritable papers have been developed, but they are all more expensive and energy-intensive to produce, and some versions use inks that pose environmental and safety hazards. The new system costs less than 1 percent of standard inkjet printing, the researchers estimate, primarily because ink cartridges are expensive. The researchers found they could refill cartridges with water and use them, along with the rewritable paper, in typical desktop printers. Print on the rewritable paper is only visible for about 22 hours, or as long as it takes the paper to dry completely. The scientists note that, while 90 percent of business information is retained on paper, most printed documents are read only once before being discarded.PERMALINK

A large majority of Americans — 83 percent — say the U.S. should make an effort to reduce global warming, even if those efforts have economic costs, according to a new report from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. As many as 56 percent of Americans would be willing to pay an extra $100 each year if their power company would generate 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources. Corporations and industry should be doing more to stave off climate change, according to 65 percent of people interviewed in a national survey, and 61 percent believe individual citizens should also be taking a more active role. Many of the survey's findings are similar across Democratic and Republican party lines. Tax rebates for energy-efficient vehicles and solar panels are popular among people aligned with both parties, for example, as well as funding renewable energy research and regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant. And people from both parties are generally supportive of ending all fossil fuel subsidies, although Democrats (67 percent) are more supportive of that policy than Republicans (52 percent).PERMALINK

In a long-awaited report, the U.S. State Department has concluded that the carbon-heavy oil from Alberta's tar sands will be extracted whether or not the Keystone XL pipeline is built, improving the prospects that the highly controversial project will be built. In an environmental impact statement that was six years in the making, the State Department concludes that the process of extracting and burning tar sands oil creates 17 percent more greenhouse gases than traditional oil, but that the heavily polluting oil will be brought to market with or without the pipeline. "It's unlikely for one pipeline to change the overall development of the oil sands," said a State Department official. If completed, the pipeline would carry 830,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta to refineries on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. President Obama will make the final decision on the Keystone XL pipeline and he vowed last year that he would approve the pipeline only if it would not "significantly exacerbate" the problem of carbon emissions. Environmental activists such as Bill McKibben of 350.org have said it would be "game over" for the climate if Keystone XL is built. PERMALINK

Norwegians have been snapping up electric cars: In the last three months of 2013, the Tesla Model S and Nissan Leaf outsold all other cars, including conventionally fueled models. But rather than environmental concerns,

An EV charges up in Oslo

a host of government incentives — totaling an estimated $8,300 per vehicle — are largely driving the boom, the Guardian reports. Norway, a country of only 5 million people, currently has around 21,000 electric vehicles (EVs) on the roads, compared to 70,000 EVs among 313 million Americans and 5,000 EVs among 63 million people in the UK. More than 1,200 EVs are being sold in Norway per month thanks to incentives that include free electricity for recharging, lower sales tax rates, waived tolls, free parking, insurance discounts, and permission to drive in bus lanes, which are less crowded. The EV rush is expected to slow, however, as bus lanes become more crowded, and the government plans to end financial incentives once 50,000 EVs are registered, which could occur by 2016.
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Interview: How Citizen Science Is Aiding and Democratizing Research

When biologist Caren Cooper carries out her avian studies, she’s aided by thousands of assistants, none of whom are paid for their work. That’s because Cooper, a research associate at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, relies on the help of so-called citizen scientists, volunteers from across the country who contribute data

Caren Cooper

to her research projects. These lay people provide information that enables her and other scientists to study bird life in ways that would otherwise be impossible. But, as Cooper notes in an interview with Yale Environment 360, the uses of citizen science go well beyond bird research. Bushmen in the Kalahari are using apps to document wildlife and natural resources that need to be protected. Environmental activists also are employing open-source technology to measure and monitor pollution, including the deployment of kites and balloons to document such events as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. “A lot of the ways for us to move forward in certain fields require massive collaboration,” says Cooper. “And so we’re building all the infrastructure for these collaborations, all of the web tools — whatever we need to make that happen.” Read the interview.PERMALINK

27 Jan 2014:
Changes in Humidity Are Used to Generate Electricity

Researchers have created a new kind of generator that uses bacterial spores to harness the untapped power of evaporating water. Scientists from Harvard and Columbia universities have created small, prototype generators by coating a sheet of rubber with a soil

Bacillus subtilis bacterial spores

bacterium, Bacillus subtilis, that greatly expands and contracts with changes in humidity. Building a generator out of Legos, a miniature fan, a magnet, and the spore-covered sheet of latex, the researchers used the humidity-driven flexing of the rubber sheet to drive the movement of the magnet, which generated electricity. The developers of the potential renewable energy technology said that large electrical generators could one day be powered by changes in humidity from sun-warmed ponds and harbors. The scientists said that moistening and then drying a pound of the spores produces enough force to lift a car one meter. “If this technology is developed fully, it has a very promising endgame,” said Columbia University researcher Ozgur Sahin.PERMALINK

A three-year study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has determined that mining in Alaska's Bristol Bay area would pose significant dangers to the environment, a potentially fatal setback for plans

Mulchatna River, part of Bristol Bay watershed

to develop Pebble Mine, a major open-pit mining project that aimed to exploit one of the largest and richest mineral deposits in the world. The EPA study cited concerns for the region's thriving sockeye salmon population and its native people, saying the mine would destroy 24 to 94 miles of salmon streams and 1,300 to 5,350 acres of wetlands, ponds, and lakes. Pebble Mine proponents, including Alaska Governor Sean Parnell, criticize the study as flawed and rushed, since the development company wasn't allowed to submit its mining plan before the EPA study. Native groups, fishermen, and environmental organizations are applauding the study. The proposed mine — which seeks to exploit gold, copper, and other metals — was already in trouble, with one of two major partners withdrawing from the project last year. PERMALINK

Google's purchase of Nest, a leading manufacturer of smart thermostats, further deepens the Internet search giant's involvement in the green energy sector and is likely to help accelerate development of a more efficient

smart grid, experts say. Google has already invested $300 million in distributed solar companies, which have been helping homeowners install photovoltaic panels to offset their conventional grid-based power consumption. The success of distributed solar hinges on effective smart-metering, and acquiring Nest — whose thermostats can be controlled remotely and can track and reduce energy consumption — could help Google gain valuable insight into millions of individuals' daily power consumption patterns, Quartz reports. As power grids and meters get "smarter," demand for technology like Nest's thermostats will likely grow; incorporating distributed solar energy sources should become easier for households, as well. The $3.2 billion deal will also give Google access to Nest Energy Services, a branch of the company that manages partnerships between Nest and U.S. power companies.
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The dramatic increase in using natural gas to produce electricity in the United States has led to an equally dramatic decline in the amount of pollutants and carbon dioxide emitted from the nation’s power plants, according to a new study. The study, conducted by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, showed that the switch from coal-fired to natural gas-fired power plants has reduced CO2 emissions by 23 percent and emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide by 40 and 44 percent, respectively. Examining power plant emissions from 1997 to 2012, the scientists found that new combined-cycle natural gas-fired power plants — which use two heat engines in tandem to convert a higher fraction of heat into electrical energy — emit less than half the amount of CO2 as coal-fired power plants. The study, to be published in the journal Earth’s Future, said that the fraction of electricity produced in the U.S. from coal fell from 83 percent in 1997 to 59 percent in 2012. Meanwhile, the fraction of electricity generated by combined-cycle natural gas plants rose from zero to 34 percent.PERMALINK

Crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken field may be more flammable and explosive than previously thought, officials now say after a series of fiery railroad accidents. The crude may contain more flammable gasses, be highly corrosive, or more sulfurous than crude from other oil fields, according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). The agency is warning Bakken oil producers to "sufficiently degasify" the crude oil before loading it into rail cars. On Monday, several tank cars carrying Bakken crude exploded after a collision on a remote stretch of track in North Dakota, and last July a runaway train carrying the crude derailed and exploded in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killing 47 people. U.S. railroads have asked manufacturers for safety upgrades to tank cars that carry Bakken crude, which could cost the industry roughly $3 billion, Reuters estimates. Trains carried nearly 700,000 barrels of Bakken crude each day in October, a 67 percent increase over the previous year.PERMALINK

Norwegian hydropower stations could be linked to wind farms and serve as giant "batteries" to even out power supply fluctuations, a Scandinavian research organization says. A major hurdle for renewable energy suppliers is intermittent power production — sometimes too much power is generated, other times too little, and periods of peak demand often don't coincide with periods of peak supply. By using excess electricity from windy periods to pump water uphill into reservoirs, hydroelectric power stations could smooth out the intermittent power supplied by large wind farms, Scandinavian researchers from the firm SINTEF say. At times of low wind energy supply, the stored water could be released through dam turbines and hydroelectricity would fill the gap. The plan requires updating and refurbishing existing Norwegian hydropower plants, which could increase their output potential by 11 to 18 gigawatts, enough to provide an adequate backup power supply. PERMALINK

23 Dec 2013:
Russian Oil Giant Becomes First in World to Pump Oil From Arctic

The Russian national oil company Gazprom has begun drilling for oil at a highly contested site in the Arctic. The oil field, an offshore site in the Russian Arctic known as Prirazlomnoye, drew international attention in September when a contingent of Greenpeace members boarded the platform in protest and were jailed in Russia for two months before being granted amnesty last week. The project, which is several years behind schedule, is the first in Russian history aimed at "developing the resources of the Arctic shelf," Gazprom said. Environmental groups say that no company has the technology or resources to deal with a massive oil spill in the harsh conditions of the Arctic Ocean. The oil giant Shell had planned exploratory drilling in the Arctic off the coast of Alaska, but temporarily shelved those plans last year after a series of mishaps. Gazprom says it has taken all necessary precautions to deal with a spill, Mongabay reports.PERMALINK

19 Dec 2013:
Los Angeles Becomes First Major U.S. City to Adopt Cool Roof Rule

The Los Angeles City Council has voted unanimously to require "cool roofs" for all new and refurbished homes, becoming the first major U.S. city to do so. "Cool roofs" incorporate light- and heat-reflecting building materials, which can lower the surface temperature of the roof by up to 50 degrees F on a hot day, according to Climate Resolve, the local organization that pushed for the ordinance. Such roofs do not necessarily need to be white, the Global Cool Cities Alliance says; they can also be shades of gray, or even red. Research suggests that by mid-century temperatures in Los Angeles will increase by 3.7 to 5.4 degrees F, with the number of days above 95 degrees F tripling in the city's downtown. "The changes our region will face are significant, and we will have to adapt," said UCLA scientist Alex Hall, who led the research. The mandate will not cost homeowners additional money because of expanded incentives.PERMALINK

17 Dec 2013:
Australian Coal Projects Threatened by Drop in Demand From China

Major Australian coal projects risk losing value due to falling demand from China, where leaders are increasingly concerned about growing public anger over severe air pollution, a new analysis from Oxford University has found. Future coal mining projects are vulnerable to being "stranded" by a range of policy changes from the Chinese government, including environmental regulation, carbon pricing, investment in renewable energy, and energy efficiency, the report said. One expert told The Guardian that global investors are already questioning the prudence of financing new fossil fuel projects. Backers of a handful of upcoming Australian coal projects "should seek clarity" on the associated costs, the Oxford analysis warns. It also cautions that Australian state governments could suffer if projects are mothballed or abandoned. Of particular concern are two mega-mines supported by Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott slated for development in Queensland. Once running at full capacity, the two projects combined would produce enough coal to emit more than 70 millions tons of CO2 a year.PERMALINK

Small, nearly meltdown-proof nuclear reactors are receiving a big boost from the U.S. Department of Energy. The department will give a company in Corvallis, Oregon, as much as $226 million to develop so-called "small modular reactors," which can be used with many local power grids that can't accommodate conventional nuclear reactors. Because of the extremely low likelihood of meltdown, the next-generation, small-scale reactors are safer than many currently operating reactors, engineers say. The company, NuScale Power, plans to encase their reactors in something akin to a large thermos, which would sit at the bottom of a pool. If a reactor fails and threatens to overheat, the container would fill with water and remove excess heat without pumps or valves, which can sometimes fail. The Energy Department's investment is the second one in a $452 million, multi-year program to accelerate the development of such reactors. The reactor designs use water as a coolant, which is technologically conservative and increases the likelihood that the small modular reactors would be approved by the Nuclear Regulatory commission, The New York Times reports.PERMALINK

12 Dec 2013:
Household Solar Panel Installations up 52 Percent in the U.S.

Household solar power is on the rise throughout the U.S., a new report shows, with installations in the third quarter of 2013 up 52 percent over the same period last year. Those installations generate a total of 930 megawatts of power, a 35 percent increase over third quarter 2012. The U.S. has likely surpassed Germany to

become the world's leader in solar power generation, the report from GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association says. California leads the country in the number of installations, followed by Arizona and North Carolina. Residential solar power is still a small slice of the total solar power market, but it's showing the strongest growth as household solar installation costs fell 9.7 percent over the past year. Of those costs, hardware expenses, including solar panels and transmission equipment, are steadily shrinking. But so-called "soft costs," such as financing and labor, now account for 64 percent of the price of household solar power installations, according to new research from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.PERMALINK

Five Questions For Jerry Brown On the West Coast Climate Pact

California Governor Jerry Brown was one of the moving forces behind a new agreement among three Western states and British Columbia to align their policies to combat climate change. Under the pact, signed on Oct.

28 by Brown and the governors of Oregon and Washington, the states and the province agreed to a series of actions, including putting a price on carbon and adopting a low-carbon fuels standard. Yale Environment 360 spoke with Brown and asked him five questions about the pact and overall efforts to tackle climate change.
Read more.PERMALINK

05 Dec 2013:
Urban Car Use Declines As Biking and Public Transit Rise in the U.S.

Americans in urban areas are driving less, biking more, owning fewer cars, and using public transportation more frequently, according to new research by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG). The number of people driving to work fell in 99 of 100 major urban areas between 2006 and 2011, and the number of miles driven by car fell in three-quarters of the cities studied over that time, the PIRG study showed. The proportion of people biking to work increased in 85 of 100 cities, while the number of miles traveled on public transit increased in 60 of 98 cities. Meanwhile, the number of people working from home grew in all 100 cities, the report said. From 2004 to 2012, the average number of vehicle-miles driven per person decreased by 7.6 percent nationwide. "There is a shift away from driving,” said Phineas Baxandall, an analyst for the U.S. PIRG Education Fund. "Instead of expanding new highways, our government leaders should focus on investing in public transit and biking for the future."PERMALINK

27 Nov 2013:
China Set to Open World's Second Largest Carbon Market

China is in the midst of launching seven carbon markets, the largest of which will open next month in Guangdong, the country's most populous province. The carbon markets are a key element of China's plan to cut carbon emissions by up to 45 percent per unit of GDP by 2020. The Guangdong carbon permitting scheme will cap 2013 emissions at 350 tons for 202 companies in the heavily industrialized province. Twenty-nine million permits will be auctioned in the market this year and next, which will be the world's second largest carbon market after the European Union's, dwarfing carbon markets in Australia and California. In 2015 the number of permits auctioned will more than triple, officials said. Shanghai's carbon market launched yesterday and a similar market, about a quarter of the size of Guangdong's, is set to open in Beijing tomorrow. China's seven carbon markets together will regulate roughly 700 to 800 million tons of CO2 annually, roughly equal to the annual emissions of Germany.PERMALINK

Fish 2.0: A Contest Seeks to Foster A More Sustainable Seafood Industry

Twenty pioneers in the sustainable seafood business climbed a stage at Stanford University in November in an effort to woo the judges at the Fish 2.0 contest

with proposals on how to change the way the U.S. catches, distributes, and markets fish. A business competition at heart, Fish 2.0 brought together entrepreneurs and investors to spur innovation in the tradition-bound seafood industry. Competitors's proposals ranged from converting waste at fish processing plants to expanding a Hawaiian network of aquaponic growers, who raise fish and vegetables together in tanks, into the developing world. One proposal aimed to create a data system to track catches in real time, enabling fisheries managers to hold the line on harvests. Contestants headed home with more than $75,000 in prize money. Read more.PERMALINK

An Australia-based solar start-up company was recognized at the U.N. climate change talks in Warsaw for its work replacing highly polluting kerosene lamps with solar lighting in low-income regions of India. The company, Pollinate Energy, trains members of local communities to install household solar-powered lights in India's slums, where families often rely on kerosene for lighting. So far the project has installed solar-powered lighting systems for 10,000 people in 250 of Bangalore’s slum communities, in turn saving 40,000 liters of kerosene and 100,000 kilograms of carbon emissions, RenewEconomy reports. The solar lighting systems are cheaper to operate than kerosene lamps and are less polluting and dangerous than kerosene, which can cause house fires and severe burns. The nonprofit project started in Bangalore — home to some of India's worst slums — as a way for children to do schoolwork after sunset. Pollinate Energy trains local installers to distribute and install the lighting systems as micro-entrepreneurs, which they call "pollinators."PERMALINK

Interview: How Big Agriculture Has Thwarted Factory Farm Reforms

In 2008, the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production released a landmark report that condemned the way the U.S. raised its cattle, pigs, and

chickens and made a sweeping series of recommendations on how to reduce the severe environmental and public health problems created by the current system. Last month, the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future released a study analyzing the fate of these reforms and reached a stark conclusion: The power of the industrial agriculture lobby had blunted nearly all attempts at change. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Robert Martin, co-author of the Johns Hopkins report, discusses what went wrong and how reforms can proceed. One hopeful sign, says Martin, is "there are more and more people who are concerned about where their food comes from and how it’s produced."Read the interview.PERMALINK

The reopening of a major uranium mine near the Grand Canyon has been put on hold until December 2014 or whenever a federal court rules on the proposed revival of the mine, the Guardian reports. The owner of Canyon

Colin.faulkingham/Wikimedia

Grand Canyon's South Rim

Mine, Energy Fuels Resources, cited falling uranium prices, which have reached a near five-year low, and litigation costs as reasons for the decision. In April the Canyon Mine and other so-called "zombie mines" were given federal approval to reopen based on their rights at the time they closed, despite an Obama administration ban on new hard-rock mines in areas larger than 1 million acres. Grand Canyon National Park officials say reopening the Canyon Mine, located six miles from the popular South Rim entrance, and other uranium mines could affect scarce water sources in the area. Environmental groups and the Havasupai Indian tribe sued the U.S. government in 2012, contending the environmental review of the mine's impacts was outdated.PERMALINK

In an effort to reduce severe air pollution in the Chinese capital, Beijing will limit by 40 percent the number of new cars sold annually for the next four years, cutting license plate allocations from 240,000 to 150,000 each

Wikimedia

Chang'an avenue in Beijing

year. The cap, which should also help ease the capital's worsening traffic congestion, means Beijing will license only 600,000 new cars between 2014 and 2017 — fewer than in 2010 alone, Reuters reports. By 2017, 40 percent of those licenses, which drivers vie for in auctions and lotteries, will be reserved for hybrid and electric cars. New car sales in China are currently capped in four cities — Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Guiyang — and the government plans to limit sales in eight additional cities, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said.PERMALINK

04 Nov 2013:
Treaties May Not Be The Key to Global Sustainable Development

Sweeping international treaties are no longer the key for charting the planet’s path to sustainable development, according to international leaders gathered at the “Rio+20 to 2015” conference last week. Instead, they said, partnerships among governments, businesses, and NGOs hold the most promise for measurable progress on sustainability issues, including climate change. "There’s been an enormous focus on treaties," Hans Hoogeveen, director general of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, told the conference at Yale University. "Lawyers and diplomats think they can rule the world, govern the world, from New York, Nairobi, or Rome. I think we have to learn that this not reality anymore." The United Nations convened a summit in Rio in 2012 to secure sustainability commitments from private businesses, societal groups, and leaders at all levels of government. Last week’s conference sought to develop recommendations for producing timely, measurable results from those commitments before international talks planned for Paris in 2015.Read more.PERMALINK

28 Oct 2013:
Underground Heat From Cities Could Help Power Them, Study Says

The heat generated by urban areas and their buildings, factories, sewers, and transportation systems could be used to power those cities, according to a new study by German and Swiss researchers. Thermal energy produced by the so-called "urban heat island effect" warms shallow aquifers lying below cities, and geothermal and groundwater heat pumps could tap into those warm reservoirs to heat and cool buildings, the scientists say. In the southwest German city of Karlsruhe, the researchers found that the city of 300,000 generated 1 petajoule of heat per year — enough to heat 18,000 households. Karlsruhe's underground heat production increased by about 10 percent over the past three decades, the team reported in Environmental Science and Technology. The biggest contributors to the city's underground heat flux were its densely populated residential areas and surface temperature increases associated with paving. Sewage pipes, underground district heating networks, and thermal waste water discharges also contribute to warming shallow aquifers, the study found.PERMALINK

Above a Whole Foods Market, A Greenhouse Grows in Brooklyn

By the end of this year, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, will witness the completion of a cutting-edge partnership in urban agriculture and retail — a 20,000-square-foot rooftop greenhouse built on a Whole Foods

Gotham Greens

Gotham Greens' existing greenhouse in Brooklyn.

supermarket. Atop this newly constructed store in Gowanus, Brooklyn, Gotham Greens, a New York company that grows greenhouse vegetables, plans to grow leafy vegetables and tomatoes, which will be sold at the store below and at other Whole Food markets. Scheduled for completion in December, Gotham Greens says the new facility will be capable of producing 150 tons of produce each year, a significant increase over the capacity of the company’s existing 100-ton-per-year solar-powered rooftop greenhouse in nearby Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Read more.PERMALINK

Leaders from some of the largest pension funds in the U.S. and the world are concerned about the future profitability of fossil fuel companies, and they have asked those companies to report on their plans for managing a long-term shift toward renewable energy. Managers of 70 major pension funds, which together control about $3 trillion in investments, asked 45 of the world's largest coal, oil, gas, and electric power companies to complete the profitability studies by spring. The pension funds are concerned that, because large investments in fossil fuel exploration take decades to recoup, future legislation could limit production or regulate expensive pollution controls that will significantly cut profitability. "The scientific trajectory that we're on is clearly in conflict" with the business strategy of the companies, Jack Ehnes, the head of the California's State Teachers' Retirement System, told the AP. "We've been pleasantly surprised by the seriousness" of some of the fossil fuel companies, who are "not just blowing us off," a spokesman for the coalition that is coordinating the efforts told the AP.PERMALINK

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Photographer Robert Wintner documents the exquisite beauty and biodiversity of Cuba’s coral reefs, which are largely intact thanks to stifled coastal development in the communist nation. View the gallery.

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The Warriors of Qiugang, a Yale Environment 360 video, chronicles a Chinese village’s fight against a polluting chemical plant. It was nominated for a 2011 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
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